Steinbeck on writing

Letters of Note (‘correspondence deserving of a wider audience’: great blog idea) has posted a letter Steinbeck wrote to his editor (and friend) on the occasion of his finishing East of Eden.

Here’s an excerpt:

A book is like a man—clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.